New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible • Hacker News Board

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#71

Post by plaidfuji » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:49 PM UTC

> A 2018 study had people who were partisan get exposed to some information on the other side. So if you’re Republican, you get to see what Hillary Clinton is saying, or if you’re a Democrat, you’re exposed to what Donald Trump is saying. And that actually made it worse.

The messenger matters just as much as the message. People on both sides carry strong Bayesian priors associated with Trump and Clinton, as well as with most major news outlets now, so they’re predisposed to assume words coming from messengers of “the other side” are inherently untrustable or malicious.

A more interesting study would be to expose partisans to identical content (an argument for something wonky, like trade policy or entitlement reform) through venues that otherwise look like their ideological stomping grounds, and watch how quickly people from both sides would agree.

Another part of the problem is that many of the current polarizing topics (gun control and abortion come to mind) are rooted in fundamental moral differences that don’t allow for rational discussion of the middle ground. Either the government can take guns away or it can’t. Either people can terminate a pregnancy or they can’t. Slippery slope arguments dominate these conversations and make people afraid to give any ground.

This is actually why I see promise for an AI tool like GPT-3 (or -6 or -7, more like) in politics. Prompt it with content from both sides and see how it answers debate questions. Maybe it would just learn how to give political non-answers. Maybe it would just lead to the politicization of AI, which currently enjoys healthy distrust from both sides. Or maybe people find that they’re more comfortable trusting a machine than a human from the other side.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#72

Post by II2II » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:50 PM UTC

mnd999 wrote: post #17

Peoples willingness to line up behind banners, flags and slogans without bothering to look at what those politicians are actually selling baffles me. I think if people from both sides were willing to ignore that and just sit down and talk about what kind of county they want to live in they would find they have a lot more in common than they think. I think this is what the article is proposing, and I think I agree wit…

Are people willing to line up, or are they being pressured to line up?

In many cases, a person's principles are clear from what they say and do. That being said, a refusal to align one's self with a movement is often construed as supporting the other side. There are many reasons for refusing to align: a preference for independent thought, a realization that ideological movements change, an understanding that one's own principles shift (while labels often stick), or simply not buying into some fundamental points. None of that seems to matter when issues are polarized.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#73

Post by codysan » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:50 PM UTC

cblconfederate wrote: post #48

swiley wrote: post #10

Delete your twitter/facebook/reddit account. Seriously! Go do it now! These sites are built with the goal of pushing people into groups that are always angry at each other. Angry polarized groups spend more time on the site and are easier to sell things to. The only thing ignoring this trash will do is make you a happier, more functional person.

I wish that were true. Social media cringe is just the symptom

I'm not so sure that it's the cringe that is the problem. I think it's the notion that these social media platforms are acting as a lens for how a lot of people see the world.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#74

Post by netcan » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:50 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #10

Delete your twitter/facebook/reddit account. Seriously! Go do it now! These sites are built with the goal of pushing people into groups that are always angry at each other. Angry polarized groups spend more time on the site and are easier to sell things to. The only thing ignoring this trash will do is make you a happier, more functional person.

How do you see HN fitting into this?

I mean, HN is a "single feed" which avoids the belligerent group dynamics... but culture bleeds.

The narrative dichotomies and other elements of this belligerence dynamic (I think it's more belligerence than polarisation, btw) exist here and other social media that isn't explicitly structured for it like twitter, reddit or fb. Is massive, many-2-many communication a lost cause?

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#75

Post by BurningFrog » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

mnd999 wrote: post #17

Peoples willingness to line up behind banners, flags and slogans without bothering to look at what those politicians are actually selling baffles me. I think if people from both sides were willing to ignore that and just sit down and talk about what kind of county they want to live in they would find they have a lot more in common than they think. I think this is what the article is proposing, and I think I agree wit…

We are an inherently tribal species. It's in our DNA.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#76

Post by at_a_remove » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

I searched the article and was unable to find the phrase "basket of deplorables." That's puzzling, because it's a really stellar instance of the very action the article discusses.

Certainly, you can get a very wound-up contingent of people anywhere who will work themselves into hysterics, call people murderers and Nazis (and then of course jump to how moral it is to punch them), but it's rather different seeing a statesperson succumb to that kind of thing was a little startling. The article missed an opportunity there.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#77

Post by the-dude » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #53

the-dude wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the phenomenon has anything to do with the US in the ROW. Here in NL, a NATO member, it has been primarily the 'left' which has been painting groups with different opinions as 'nazis' 'fascists' etc. Vegans describing other people as murderers. I blame this culture for our last political murder [0] which already happened in 2002. This phenomenon is not new, I think it has to do with the dissolution of the USS…

> Vegans describing other people as murderers. Well, this is literally true if you consider non-human lives. The danger I see is then not listening to and interacting with these non-vegans to develop a more nuanced perspective of the people on "the other side" who may not be very different after all. Stating a legitimate political or moral view alone is not (itself) what induces polarization, as I see it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder

If you want redefine language, that is fine, but in real life I will not accept being called a murderer.

1984 was not a manual.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#78

Post by gruez » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:52 PM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #53

the-dude wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the phenomenon has anything to do with the US in the ROW. Here in NL, a NATO member, it has been primarily the 'left' which has been painting groups with different opinions as 'nazis' 'fascists' etc. Vegans describing other people as murderers. I blame this culture for our last political murder [0] which already happened in 2002. This phenomenon is not new, I think it has to do with the dissolution of the USS…

> Vegans describing other people as murderers. Well, this is literally true if you consider non-human lives. The danger I see is then not listening to and interacting with these non-vegans to develop a more nuanced perspective of the people on "the other side" who may not be very different after all. Stating a legitimate political or moral view alone is not (itself) what induces polarization, as I see it.

>Well, this is literally true if you consider non-human lives. [...] Stating a legitimate political or moral view alone is not (itself) what induces polarization, as I see it.

Calling the other side "murderers" goes beyond "stating a legitimate political or moral view". You're accusing the other side of being criminals of the worst kind, so of course it's going to be polarizing.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#79

Post by Tycho » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #43

Tycho wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it wasn’t for Twitter I would have literally no clue about the machinations of the intelligence agencies to undermine the president or the corrupt activities of the Biden family. Unfortunately the mainstream media outlets choose not to report or pursue a lot of stuff, and have an alarming habit of citing dubious statements from “the intelligence community” as legitimate evidence that resolves the matter.

twitter is a terrible tool for this. It's heavily censored and biased. You could have heard it here or from a decent journalist.

Twitter can only make meagre attempts to censor. They can stop something from “trending” or whatever. But if you want to hear from independent journalists and researchers and analysts, Twitter lets you do that, and short of shutting down the entire service, it’s unstoppable.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#80

Post by Waterluvian » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

Tycho wrote: post #62

Waterluvian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing is that the claims about fascism at least have the possibility of being true while "owning the libs" betrays its own disingenuous purpose of not even trying to make a point other than winning against the other team.

“own the libs” is satire, it’s not literally the political platform

Not exactly a useful claim given it can be made by anyone for any portion of their "team" they're embeeassed by.

The core problem is that America uses a two party system and that can only result in heavy partisanship.